


Le Cénacle des Révolutionnaires Morts

by 1Boo



Series: The Dead Revolutionaries Club [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Current Events, Let's Just Call This Problematic and Postmodern Shall We, Multi, Politics, Politics With Bonus Pining!!, Victor Hugo Pastiche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1Boo/pseuds/1Boo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras vs. Current Events: vignettes from the Dead Revolutionaries Club verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Grantaire is misplaced. Sort of.

**7th February, 2014**

 

_bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com> à joly <joly@gmail.com>_

JOLY HELP WHY IS GRANTAIRE IN RUSSIA. Is he there to help cover the Olympics??? DID I MISS SOMETHING HERE?? I thought Jehan and Eponine were covering Sochi? And Courfeyrac was overseeing? I am confused, my friend.

I’ve copy/pasted the emails which brought this New And Strange thing to light:

> _bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com> à enjolras  
> _
> 
> hi enjolras,
> 
> just to add to the week’s write-up, got some more unrest in rio de janeiro. one cameraman (journalist) injured in protest - no one seems to know if it was police brutality and a “stun grenade” or the protest going south with people chucking homemade bombs about. Kinda like that time Cosette took us to that Berlin rally, only this time the bomb actually goes off after it hits me in the face.
> 
> Whole thing’s a response to “poor public services” even with high taxes. Anti-gov sentiment involved; not sure if that’s more ‘we don’t like these people in charge’ or ‘anarchy in the streets’. More to come, probs, with World Cup.
> 
> Also, have you seen Grantaire? No problem if not, we just seem to have misplaced him. And my leather gloves, the soft pair.
> 
> bossuet
> 
> .
> 
> _enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com> à bossuet_
> 
> Good evening Bossuet,
> 
> We’ll keep an eye on Rio de Janeiro for now, though I forwarded your email to Eponine and Feuilly just in case. Thank you for your update, though if you could check the reliability of your source, I would appreciate it. So would Combeferre’s spreadsheets.
> 
> You have not misplaced Grantaire. Grantaire is in Russia.
> 
> Cordially,
> 
> Enjolras
> 
> .

As you can see, we have _not_ misplaced him (though my gloves I believe are lost). Courfeyrac, though also in Russia, doesn’t even seem to be behind this. I am baffled. And maybe a little jealous of Grantaire rubbing elbows with The Good Vodka. Enjolras is keeping up the Russian vodka ban, despite admitting that it won’t put pressure on the right people. Publicity is publicity.

But just try to imagine Grantaire in Russia with an enforced vodka embargo. Try, I dare you.

bossuet

.

_joly <joly@gmail.com> à bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com>_

vodkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

.

_joly <joly@gmail.com> à bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com>_

sorry u caught me at a bad time. a bad place. combeferre's liquor cabinet is a place. I’m moostly sober now. I DON’T KNOW WHY R IS IN RUSSIA NO ONE TELLS ME THESE THINGNGNGS. Jehan should be there cause culture n Cou cause human rights and also he’s apparently in charge of the dead revolutionaries club’s queer brigade and Eponine cause…economics??? international relations?? she knows shit idk. i could’ve gone cause i did all that work on olympic comitee curruption  (srry spelling not working) but i told enjolras i’d rather not as it is very cold in russia in february.

but none of those are R’s specialty so i am also Concerned, my dear manfriend. OH NO DO YOU THINK ENJOLRAS SENT HIM TO TAKE CARE OF PUTIN THAT’S NOT GOOD.

Eponine and R in the same country often ends with a body count i AM NOT HAPPY NOW, EVEN WITH COMBEFERRE'S BRANDY

I’m going to durunk-email R next so maybe we’ll know soon.

pls wipe your history and burn this email. i know our servers are secure n shit, but i think this email is probably ill-informed.

j

ps i am wearing your gloves <3


	2. Enjolras to All Contacts

**8th February, 2014**

 

_Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com> to All Contacts_

Everyone,

Thank you for today’s write-up. We’re assigning as follows:

Turkish protests against internet censorship – Courfeyrac, Bossuet, myself

Mexican poet winning Garcia Lorca prize – Bossuet, Jehan

Iris, digital library – Myself, Combeferre (may request Jehan)

Illinois coal mine corruption – Cosette, Joly

Strasbourg youths travelling to fight in Syria – Myself, Musichetta (may request Eponine and/or Feuilly)

Boehner and Obama’s attempt to slow deportation – Cosette

Riots in Madrid – Myself

Ross Ulbricht pleading not guilty to Silk Road charges – Cosette, Eponine, Bahorel

Combeferre would like to remind everyone that Turkey is not in the Middle East, and in fact falls either into the category of Europe or Asia. Please stop sending Jehan links to Turkish protests. Send them to Courfeyrac instead; Eurasia is his jurisdiction. If anyone has a source for these other than Anonymous propaganda (as much as we appreciate Anon’s propaganda), it would be very helpful.

I would like to remind everyone that a single giraffe named Marius is not news, unless we agree that there are major ethical and environmental implications in ending its life. Read the article. Form your own opinions. Stop making Marius hide in Combeferre's closet. He, and I quote, "doesn’t fit" and "broke the mop".

Regards,  
Enjolras

.

_Feuilly <feuilly@gmail.com> à Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com>_

I think I speak for the group when I ask what happened to Russia. Joly mentioned that Grantaire is with Courfeyrac and Jehan in Sochi; is that why no one was assigned anything relating to the Games or any of the controversy surrounding them? If so, I trust your judgment, but if not I’d still like to look into the rumors of workers being deported without wages in the rush to be ready for the Olympics.

Thanks,

Feuilly

.

_Combeferre <combeferre@hotmail.com.fr> à Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com>_

Joly is in my apartment, drinking my good brandy and demanding to know if you’ve sent Grantaire to assassinate Vladamir Putin. I lay this problem at your door.

Combeferre

.

_Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com> à Combeferre <combeferre@hotmail.com.fr>_

You know I’d never put the group in that sort of position. Grantaire needed a change of scenery after so long in Ukraine. Feel free to send Joly my way when I get home. Or possibly don't. I'm not myself at the moment.

E

.

_Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com> to All Contacts_

It has been brought to my attention that I left out Russia when assigning tasks yesterday. While the bulk of investigation and action regarding Sochi will be left to Jehan and Courfeyrac, we will still be following events in Russia as usual.

In response to an alarming number of emails and text messages, yes, Grantaire is also in Sochi. I am en route home from Kiev until, for instance, the Istanbul or Madrid riots prove to be in need of our intervention, or Kiev heats up again. I look forward to seeing you all.

Regards,  
Enjolras


	3. In which Grantaire will never get to Rio

Courfeyrac leaned back and balanced his chair on two legs. Grantaire looked on from a smelly yellow sofa under the window, silently wondering at Courfeyrac’s trust in cheap Russian chairs. They’d spent most of yesterday wandering from one half-finished hotel to the next, chatting up Courfeyrac’s journalist friends in their pre-booked suites, and peering suspiciously at Grantaire’s journalist friends, most of whom were either squatting or paying off local families for a room. Jehan trotted along cheerfully through the dodgier bits, and Grantaire suspected that their combined charm had managed to divert one mugger looking to fleece what appeared to be three unsuspecting French tourists.

As it went, the mugger had ended up lending Jehan his cell phone so they could call up some bigwig reporter who had a story that had Courfeyrac and Jehan excited. Grantaire felt some secret kinship with the utter confusion on the mugger’s face as he accepted his phone’s return. Grantaire saluted the man with revolting cheer in a way that just happened to make his jacket fall open to reveal the edges of a shoulder holster. Never say Grantaire didn’t contribute.

Or do say it. The voicing of an opinion couldn’t do much in the face of the vast absurdity of the universe.

Muggers and existentialism aside, he wasn’t sure Courfeyrac’s luck would hold in abusing their hosts’ creaking furniture. Grantaire kicked at the chair legs and Courfeyrac yelped and scowled, but righted himself. Jehan laughed a little from where he lay spread-eagle on the floor. They were crashing in a spare room that obviously was normally home office space, but Grantaire had slept in worse with Enjolras choosing where they'd bunk down.

Grantaire resolved to not think about Enjolras. He could manage half an hour, even sober. Courfeyrac had other plans.

“Looks like Enjolras wants to do an opinion piece on the opportunistic response of American companies to Russian anti-homosexuality laws,” Courfeyrac said, glancing back at his laptop. Their hosts – friends of friends of some British foreign exchange students Grantaire had partied with two years ago in Grenoble – had offered the use of an ancient desktop computer which wheezed even at rest, and very likely had never seen a firewall in all its centuries of use. Jehan had declined the offer for the three of them, and had done so very politely when one considered that Courfeyrac was the only one of the trio who spoke some Russian.

Grantaire scowled. This was the first time Courfeyrac had brought up Enjolras since Grantaire’s arrival. “At least he’s admitting that it’s capitalism and some strange vestige of the Cold War that’s suddenly made rainbows trendy, not the goodness of CEOs’ fat-filled hearts.”

“Hearts bloated with fat instead of love,” said Jean Prouvaire from the floor. “Horrific. That’s cool.”

“Thanks, Jehan,” Grantaire said.

“Is Enjolras going to post the opinion piece somewhere?” Grantaire asked Courfeyrac, who looked surprised that Grantaire would willingly continue to talk about Enjolras. Never understimate Grantaire's obstinancy and subtle masochism.

“Publish it, if we can. Anywhere, really. We’ve got offers for some places in more political zines.”

“You’re welcome,” said Jean, stabbing a fist into the air without bothering to get up. Courfeyrac grinned at him, and turned back to Grantaire, who shifted to lie as sloppily as he could manage across the revolting sofa. The smell made him wonder which of their elderly hosts might have a skin condition.

“And we’ll be writing in to every magazine and newspaper, online or not, that’s listening to us. So that’s the platform for this particular one.”

“We really need a blog,” Grantaire said.

“We have a blog, it’s just broken beyond repair. It’s not really Bossuet’s fault,” Courfeyrac pointed out defensively.

“The giant FBI crest and anti-piracy warning is a bit unfortunate.”

“Especially as we weren’t actually using it as a platform for torrents.”

“I still don’t understand how that happened," Grantaire mused, following Jehan's gaze to the ceiling.

“I still don’t understand why Enjolras sent you here, Grantaire,” Courfeyrac said. It wasn’t said unkindly, not even remotely so. Still, Jehan blushed perceptibly behind his curtain of shining black hair. They’d both been avoiding the topic with him – of course they had.

Grantaire sighed, and bought time by lighting a cigarette. Jehan made grabby hands from the floor, so Grantaire pressed two cigarette’s between his lips and lit them both on a single inhale, passing one to Jehan.

“What can I say?” Grantaire laughed around his cigarette. “There’s only so much I can take. Enjolras was mostly going between groups of revolutionaries, trying to get socialists to team up with anarchists. I was mostly sitting around making sure she didn’t punch anyone who uttered the words ‘laissez-faire’.

Courfeyrac laughed, but it sounded conflicted. “Well, the only time she works effectively as a diplomat is with warring factions of revolutionaries and protest groups.”

“I thought she did punch someone,” said Jehan, waving his cigarette around to make smoke patterns in the air. He turned his head to peer up at Courfeyrac, his long hair spilling inky patterns along the dull red and green carpet. “Didn’t Enjolras punch someone?”

“I can’t be held accountable for her actions in the presence of skinheads or people who talk about trickle-down economics,” Grantaire grunted from the couch, looking personally offended that he’d had to break up a fist fight instead of joining in, instead of irked by the political and cultural ramifications of the things that pissed Enjolras off. He wondered when this conversation would take pity on him and end.

“I’m thinking about going to South America next,” Grantaire said, almost desperately, into the silence. “Bossuet sent Enjolras an email about some protests in Rio. Might be a good place to make friends.”

Courfeyrac frowned, and even Jehan didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“Rio might not heat up enough to need presence there for a while, if it does at all,” Courfeyrac said slowly.

“Whaaaat,” said Grantaire, gesturing dramatically with his cigarette. “I can’t take a vacation?”

“Enjolras is staying in Europe. She’s preoccupied with Ukraine for now, and some protests in Istanbul and Madrid,” Courfeyrac said, still speaking slowly, like he was unsure of his footing in the conversation. Let him be, Grantaire thought vehemently. He sighed, and caught far more of the stink wafting out of the couch cushions than he really cared to smell. He sat up.

“Well, I’m in Russia for now; Enjolras can damn well enjoy Kiev. I’m going out. Those Italian guys we talked to earlier wanted some help finding a good bar.”

He pushed himself to his feet and Courfeyrac stood too, but leaned against the desk so his superior height didn’t tower over Grantaire. Courfeyrac did that sort of thing without even realizing it. It annoyed Grantaire how relaxed it made him feel. It annoyed Grantaire that this was the place he’d chosen to go to when he left Enjolras in Kiev. Seeking Courfeyrac out like some sort of comforting parent was hardly what he’d meant to do, but here he was, comfortable with Courfeyrac and smiling with Jehan.

Courfeyrac broke through his thoughts.

“R,” he said simply, gesturing at his own clothes. Grantaire looked down at himself. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt and a long floral print skirt. Grantaire laughed, too loudly for the little space.

“Are you serious?” he demanded. “Even Enjolras doesn’t give a shit how I present. Hell, they're nearly as racist as homophobic here; you guys aren't in a much better position. At least I was raised Catholic.”

“You can probably pass,” Jehan offered as a quiet peace offering. “With a different shirt.” His mouth twisted, and Grantaire assumed Jehan had some idea how the words landed and dug in and stung.

“That’s okay,” Grantaire said, walking away. “I’ll just do whatever. Come get me if you need backup.”

The door to the guest room closed sharply, echoing down the hall. Jehan offered Courfeyrac his cigarette, and Courfeyrac smiled wanly and handed it back after a single drag.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped him. I’ve never heard Enjolras tell R it’s too dangerous to present how R wants.”

“I don’t want him hurt, especially when Enjolras isn’t here,” Courfeyrac said quietly. “She’d kill us all, and anyone responsible, and end up branded a terrorist, most likely. But I probably shouldn’t have said anything. Shit. R handles himself fine at home. Damn.”

“He didn’t tell us why he’s here,” Jehan said, a little sadly.

“Joly thinks he’s here to assassinate Putin,” Courfeyrac told him, sitting back down with a sigh and tapping listlessly at his laptop.

“Joly is convinced Dick Cheney is a robot yet voted against my Mayan Apocalypse party last year. I don’t pretend to understand his mysteries.”

Courfeyrac sighed and shook his head. “It’s just strange,” he said, “to see Grantaire without Enjolras.”

Jehan shrugged and tapped his fingers against the carpet, considering, "Enjolras is going back to Grenoble for a little while. I wonder if it's just as strange for the rest of them to see her without Grantaire." He paused, and made an attempt at logic. “Well, it wasn’t always this way. We knew Enjolras before we knew Grantaire.” He plucked at a tuft of the carpet, which was probably disgusting. “It just feels like it’s always been this way.”

Courfeyrac hummed in vague agreement. “Right. Way back in the days of yesteryear. A time when half our friends weren’t on one blacklist or another, and we spent our summers on the sunny side of the Alps,” he said, chuckling with the absurdity of the idea. “And Marius wasn’t risking disownment for being my glorified housesitter," he added on the end. It had obviously been upsetting him.

“Boring,” said Jehan dismissively. “Do you think, when Grantaire’s less angry, he’ll be willing to help me convince everyone to have a Ragnarok party? It’s the next apocalypse.”

“Sure, chou,” Courfeyrac said, nudging Jehan with his foot. “Let’s just tear down some institutional hatred first.”

“Nothing like civil disobedience and social revolution for a pre-party,” Jehan said, lolling on the floor and grinning. His teeth were a white slash in a dark face.


	4. Red, the color of the body paint R stole from Femen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A flashback (because this wasn't already some really annoying chronology) to explain a few events surrounding Grantaire's departure from Kiev. Without ever actually explaining anything, because this is Grantaire after all.

_Bahorel <bahorel@gmail.com> à Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com>_

Hey Enjolras, can we change our colors? See, people are confusing us with Femen since that time R got drunk and got into the red and black body paint (it was in Berlin, that one time, remember Bossuet got hit in the head with a defective pipe bomb?).

So now there are some pictures circulating the internet of R with revolutionary slogans slathered across his collarbone, which is fine and all, he rocks it, but now I’ve found a speculative article on Rue89.com postulating that yourself and R were thrown out of Femen for your association with this funny group someone’s heard of, you know, that Dead Revolutionaries Club. What a bunch of wackos. WHO ALSO USE RED AND BLACK LIKE EVERY SINGLE FRENCH ACTIVIST GROUP SINCE THE FUCKING JULY REVOLUTION SO THE CONFUSION IS UNDERSTANDABLE.

I’m just saying, our fabulousness is taking a blow. At least Femen members get pink smoke bombs. Can we make some room in the budget for pink smoke bombs?

Bahorel

.

_Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com> à Bahorel <bahorel@gmail.com>_

No

_._

_Enjolras <enjolras@gmail.com> à Bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com>_

Bossuet,

It’s come to my attention that someone has leaked photographs of Grantaire at Cosette’s Berlin protest (yes, the one you’re thinking of) and they’ve been published in a somewhat misleading manner. When you have a moment, please take down this article (link) on Rue89.

Have you looked into the vigilante groups going up against the Knights Templar cartel in Mexico? I haven’t gotten an update from you.

Enjolras

.

_Bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com> à Cosette <cosette@hotmail.com.fr>_

Yo Cosette, do YOU have any idea what is happening? Joly’s started a betting pool for the varying conspiracy theories. I’ve abstained so far, but should you want someone to throw the game, being the darling cutthroat strategist that you are, Joly and I can aid you. We only ask for 30% of winnings, as usual. Someone has to stop Eponine from winning everything.

Cheating our friends aside, we’re all in a mild panic over Grantaire running loose in Russia, but what about Enjolras? She just sent me an email asking if I’ve gotten anywhere on the Mexican cartel stuff, which…I’m just gonna pass on to you, since it’s you and Eponine who are in charge of that project. And have been. For like a year now. Sooooo, I don’t think we really need to be concerned yet, but I’m thinking about asking Jehan if any recent events might be a sign of the Norse apocalypse. You can never be too prepared. I myself am stocking up on couscous and doritos.

Bossuet

.

_Bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com> à Joly <joly@gmail.com>_

Hello there, darling friend o’ mine. Enjolras sent me a rather interesting request today, involving one article on Rue89 that seems to have confused R with a member of Femen after a certain incident with body paint (I didn’t realize just how much HAPPENED in Berlin; suppose that’s what comes from missing a few hours to a concussion).

Anyhow, I’ve killed the article dead with my incredible magical hacking fingers (I sent a message to the editor; I don’t know why Enjolras didn’t try that herself. Actually, maybe it’s best she didn’t). However, it seems a shame these lovely jpgs should go to waste. Soooo, keep ‘em safe for me. If you decide to sell them, well, I cannot stop you, but I can and will request payback in the form of alcohol and/or another external hard drive. I think Gaston in corrupted and will shortly be in the big hardware dump in the sky.

B

.

_Joly <joly@gmail.com> à Bossuet <bossuet@gmail.com>_

I will treasure these. Because I am a professional member of an extreme leftist activism group, I have stealthily saved them on my laptop in a file labeled ‘ENJOLRAS LOOK IT’S R IN BODY PAINT’. I hope my laptop is confiscated again next time I go through airport security. I’ve also labeled all my porn folders in preparation: ‘list of dead revolutionaries club members’, ‘top secret info about enjolras’, and ‘how we pulled off that job in Marrakesh that you could never link to us’.

Joly

PS. I just got an invite to a Ragnarok party from Jehan. I thought the apocalypses were over??? /incoherent wailing.

.

 

Grantaire could mostly remember thinking that it would be a long train ride, at least equal to the distance between Berlin and Lyon. That was a punishment enough in its own right, in Grantaire’s opinion; the hours in a second class carriage and the fact that, after all that, he’d only have managed to cross one border, from Ukraine to Russia.

You’re supposed to cross rivers to throw tracking dogs off your scent. Some part of Grantaire believed there was some similar, modern magic when it came to borders. Grantaire had used to get nervous at immigration checkpoints the few times he’d travelled, and that was before he’d fallen in with Enjolras and the rest of them. The official phrase wasn’t “fell in with” though; it was “affiliated”. Grantaire’s name, maybe even his real name, was probably typed out somewhere on a document, followed neatly by a comma and the word “affiliated”. He didn’t think they could peg him as anything else. Enjolras often said this was a good thing.

Grantaire got stopped before he could even begin, at Russian border control. Of course he did. If Grantaire tried to cross a river, he was the type of person to manage to drown in it. There seemed to be some confusion at the checkpoint; the annoyingly serious type that landed Grantaire in a white room within fifteen minutes, having his pockets searched. They had photographs of Grantaire from some Russian news site pulled up on a tablet; he couldn’t read the headline, much less the caption. They were riot photos, from a city Grantaire couldn’t even remember. There was no architecture in the photos to give a hint. Just Grantaire and a shouting girl wearing no shirt and a lot of body paint and extreme-leftist slogans, and behind them a crowd full of distorted faces and grabbing hands. Grantaire’s face was painted, and _LIBERTY_ was smeared across his collarbone, but at least Grantaire was still wearing all his clothes.

Small mercies. What wasn’t merciful was that Enjolras and the rest of them would have already seen this.

The two border control guys stopped asking questions in Ukrainian and Russian and switched to some broken combination of French and English. Slowly, their issue with Grantaire became clear. They appeared to think Grantaire was the woman in the photo with LIBERTY painted across her collarbone – and they were right, Grantaire was her. They also had Grantaire’s passport, with his acne-bitten mug shot complete with two days of dark stubble and a mad-dog gaze. Grantaire was this man as well. On some level they must have realized this, but logically, they were struggling to decide who Grantaire was, man or woman, extremist affiliate or tired French tourist.

What Grantaire was _not_ was the person who felt like explaining themself, their gender, their history and personality and the sum of all their paradoxes to two uniforms on the wrong side of a border.

Grantaire sat back in his plastic chair and grinned, lolling in the way only someone who had recently imbibed a good portion of gin in preparation for a day-long train journey could do.

“Crazy day,” Grantaire said, pointing at the photograph. “I was drunk.”

This was true. Grantaire liked tearing things to pieces with truths. He’d do it to himself as well, a nasty habit same as other people chewed their nails or bit their lips.

Mind, Grantaire did those things too. Grantaire proudly displayed every annoying nervous tick you could imagine. Including chronically lying by omission, which is what he was doing now.

They were embarrassed, the guards. They were not sure if they’d embarrassed themselves by thinking Grantaire was a woman in the photo or embarrassed for Grantaire for looking like a woman. Why correct them? Grantaire and the uniforms could barely communicate that Grantaire was not a terrorist, much less anything more intricate, any more subjective. Some things just didn’t translate. Grantaire had shouted at Enjolras all day yesterday, all day for the last week, it felt like, and none of that had translated either. Grantaire’s mouth was a mobile, wily thing. It was making all Grantaire’s excuses for him.

No, Grantaire was not a terrorist. A lie by omission. No, Grantaire was not an extremist. A lie due to the sheer subjectivity of the question. They looped around and became truths in Grantaire’s traitorous mouth. No, Grantaire was not affiliated – and there, he only lied once. For Enjolras and the rest of them. Grantaire shot stories left and right, and watched these men trip up on their own inferences. All Grantaire’s ID cards were perfect fakes. Borders had no hold on him. Only friends knew his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Femen is an international women's rights extremist group. They're especially famous for protesting shirtless, with their slogan painted across their chest. They started in Kiev in 2008, but were forced to flee Ukraine August 2013, and are now largely based in Paris. 
> 
> Femen according to themselves: http://femen.org/about
> 
> Femen according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEMEN
> 
> 2\. Grantaire really did just get drunk and make a friend who let R use her body paint.


	5. In which Grantaire sleeps through another international crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two months later, and they've been back in Ukraine for three weeks.

**April 24 th, 2014**

Grantaire got very sick for three days, and when he woke on the fourth pro-Russian separatists appeared to believe that they’d started a war in Sloviansk.

Or rather, Grantaire woke up on a couch wrapped in sheets sticky with his own body odor completely disoriented as to where he was. Somewhere close by, someone was typing swiftly on much-abused laptop keys. Grantaire blinked, but was unable to keep his eyes open. The blink had been enough; he could recognize Enjolras in a straight-backed chair, hunched over her tiny netbook.

He was exhausted, but his body appeared to have given up on attacking itself for now. The pain in his hips, his knees, his ankles and knuckles had receded as if it had never come. Even the churning in his gut felt like it would subside so long as he ate carefully and took his medication.

He wondered dreamily where they were. He thought it might be Grenoble, if only he could place the room they were in.

Before he could fall asleep again – goddammit, how long had he been ill? He’d sort of just followed Enjolras around without even realizing how out of it he’d been – Grantaire reached out and unsteadily slugged down a mouthful of Enjolras’s cold coffee. He woke up a little even before the caffeine hit his brain. Learned response to coffee. He could train his body the way he couldn’t train his mind.

They were definitely not in Grenoble. He opened his eyes again to find Enjolras looking back at him. Let her look; she could take the job of deciding what Grantaire could and could not do today.

“Musichetta’s here,” Enjolras said, a little like she wanted to get that information given and done with. Grantaire raised his eyebrows, or tried to. His body still wasn’t responding too quickly. He took another gulp of Enjolras’s coffee, getting a mouthful of grainy sludge at the bottom for his trouble.

“We’re fucked, then,” said Grantaire. He felt he always brought a special something to their conversations.

“Maybe I need to redistribute duties,” said Enjolras, brow furrowed, “if that’s always the group’s reaction to Musichetta’s presence on a job.”

“Correction,” said Grantaire, groaning and stretching tentatively on the sofa. His limbs barely protested. “Everyone loves Musichetta, and Musichetta knows her shit in a war zone. She just sometimes plays the part of the second horseman a little too well. You didn’t even wait for my second reaction to Musichetta’s presence, which is to ruthlessly steal her lipstick.” He sighed. His mind felt jittery, at once exhausted and too hyper. It was perfect for babbling. “If she’s here, does that mean that you’re finally facing that this hasn’t been your fight for a while? We’re in Courfeyrac’s territory, the revolution’s been over for months, and both Musichetta’s war zone expertise and Combeferre’s obsessively memorized international law shit will be more useful here.”

“Forgive me if I would rather be somewhere I can make sure you don’t go running off to Russia again, Grantaire. Do you know how dangerous it is right now?” Enjolras snapped, hardly glancing up from her laptop.

“Do _you_ know how dangerous it is?” demanded Grantaire, because really, there was a reason Enjolras hadn’t been on the crew in Sochi, other than the distinct lack of civil uprising at the winter Olympics. Fortunately the Russian authorities thought she was still in the United States, which was a tricky bit of extradition any day. Admittedly, he’d known that the choice to flee to Sochi back in February had been in part because he knew it was a place where he could find his friends but Enjolras couldn’t follow, at least not without insane risks or months of preparation. On that thought… “We’re getting you out before the borders close or Russia really does take over.”

If Enjolras didn’t agree with that, the rest of them definitely would. Ah, democracy.

“Are we now?” Enjolras asked with unexpected acid in her tone.  “And where will you go then; Russia again, or do you have another country where there’s enough of a price on my head that Combeferre and Courfeyrac will threaten mutiny if I try to put a toe over the border?”

“What?” demanded Grantaire. Had they _needed_ to threaten Enjolras to stop her from fetching Grantaire herself? This shit had gone down months ago. “I don’t fucking know where we’re going,” he added for good measure. They were not talking about why he’d left Kiev in the middle of a national revolution; they goddamn were _not doing that_.

“Grenoble,” said Enjolras like it was a test.

“Home sweet home,” said Grantaire, meeting her stare.

She shook her head, eyes a bit feverish, a bit wild. “We’ll see. Musichetta will be advising me.”

Grantaire wasn’t at all sure he’d passed whatever test that had been, but that uncertainty at least was nothing new.

“What the hell happened while I was out, anyway?” Grantaire asked, finally shifting to sitting position and wondering where he could get more coffee, damn what it would do to his already ulcerous insides. He was more unnerved than he wanted to admit by the state of his mind while his body had been on the fritz. Fortunately Enjolras was used to Grantaire having not a fucking clue what was going on.

“Ah,” said Enjolras delicately. “The separatists seem to believe they’ve started a war in Sloviansk. There’s been some shooting, some burning tires at checkpoints.”

Grantaire smiled wanly. “And here I thought you were going to prove me wrong.”

“It wasn’t my revolution, Grantaire,” said Enjolras in a deadly voice. She sounded tired though.

“They’re all your revolutions,” sighed Grantaire. “You adopt them. I could continue on how that’s a long metaphor for your latent maternal instinct, but even I can’t be that insultingly patriarchal this early in the…afternoon.” Keeping the sheet wrapped around him, he stood shakily. Enjolras gestured to the toast and smoked fish on the table by her elbow.

“Can you eat those?” she asked. Grantaire shrugged. He could generally digest fish and white bread. Enjolras didn’t care what she ate as long as it involved protein and was economically friendly, so she generally just adapted to Grantaire’s wildly complex diet. It was apathy that felt like a kindness. Grantaire took what he could get.

While Grantaire nibbled experimentally on the toast, Enjolras turned back to her laptop, lips a tight line.

“Grantaire,” she said, “translate this for me.” She turned the screen so Grantaire could see the dead revolutionaries club twitter feed in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian… they followed a lot of news sites.  Enjolras had a brilliant mind, with uninhibited drive and an unprecedented completion rate for her set goals, but she was not a linguist.

There were a few tweets on the page, from Medecins sans Frontieres advertising for midwives to join their ranks, one of the poetry blogs Jehan had them follow for the sake of “cultural significance”, something from Science News postulating a connection between the menstrual cycle and the invention of music – Grantaire could only blame Combeferre, and article on same-sex marriage’s one-year anniversary in France from Le Monde. Finally Grantaire reached one in English from The Economist.

Grantaire raised his eyebrows and read aloud, “In eastern Ukraine the fog of war has descended. The government faces a forbidding task to regain control.” He squinted. “This was only posted a minute ago.”

Enjolras stood so fast her chair rattled and Grantaire had to resist the urge to leap away. She snatched a pillow off the couch and threw it against the wall.

“Fuck!”

Grantaire stared. Courfeyrac broke things in anger; Enjolras broke things to make a point. There wasn’t much point in hurling a cushion against a wall, was there?

“They’ve decided, just like that!” she spat, staring down at the pillow.

Grantaire let the silence hang for a moment, just a little enraptured with the rage in Enjolras’s face.

“They’ve decided based on evidence,” Grantaire suggested. “It’s not like _The Economist_ is making shit up.”

“You know the power using a word has,” Enjolras fucking growled. “War. They don’t deserve this. They worked so fucking hard.”

“Your savoir complex is showing,” Grantaire told her, mostly so he wouldn’t beg her to grab his hair and pull his head back and whisper “fuck” again, but this time against his neck.

“Don’t push me right now, Grantaire,” she said in a dangerous tone. It was sad that Grantaire thrived in these moments just as much as he did when Enjolras was happy. “Russia’s doing military exercises just across the border in response to some Ukrainian military action.”

“Is that a metaphor?” asked Grantaire cheerfully, mostly because he was afraid. “Are you Russia? Are you going to disregard my borders?”

He was saved being punched in the face by Musichetta bursting through the door. Grantaire realized for the first time what a strange room they were in; not one a hotel would have. It almost seemed like someone’s sitting room or little-used parlor. Over Musichetta’s shoulder he caught a glimpse of a hallway, and wondered what favors Enjolras had called in for this one.

“Confirmed,” Musichetta gasped out, which apparently meant something to Enjolras, if not Grantaire. “At least sixteen journalists abducted by the separatists.” She was apparently out of breath but her dark curls and arranged scarves over a sleek leather jacket were in perfect order. She’d been in Syria for the last month, and had been about to either head to the Central African Republic or back home on what she and her boys jokingly called her ‘leave’. Putin should’ve been flattered that she considered him able to fuck shit up thoroughly enough to skip a pit stop in Grenoble and Joly and Bossuet’s bed.

“Understood,” said Enjolras with her battle face on. “Grantaire, email Bossuet, tell him to get this out on all channels. Start with…Amnesty International, maybe. This, on top of the violence against journalists in Pakistan…in fact, copy Jehan into the email as well. It might be useful to him. At least here they’re being abducted, not shot.”

“More news, Enjolras,” said Musichetta. “Cosette’s father has been posing as a journalist with an American news channel.”

Grantaire felt himself pale, toast and herring halfway to his mouth. Enjolras waited calmly.

“He was friendly with one of the journalists taken. They had dinner together the last time they were seen. We believe he’s been taken as well.”

“Not Papa Valjean?” Grantaire gaped.

“Christ Grantaire, call him Fauchelevant,” Enjolras ordered. She paused. “I’ll write Cosette.”

Musichetta nodded and slipped back the way she came, with only one inscrutable look for Grantaire. He remembered that he was still dressed in nothing but boxers and the sheet he was clutching around himself and flushed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The Economist article over which Enjolras is flipping her shit: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21601313-deal-geneva-fails-ground-descent-darkness?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/descentintodarkness
> 
> 2\. Amnesty International report of journalists and officials kidnapped in the Ukraine: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/ukraine-abducted-journalists-and-officials-must-be-released-2014-04-24%20%20


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